


all the stars

by Gon (pepperedfox)



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: F/M, M/M, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28206669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperedfox/pseuds/Gon
Summary: Thus came Andersen’s second conclusion: all gods at Chaldea were infected by humanity. They were no longer beings beyond the reach of mere mortals but soiled by the spirit of living as a ‘human’ ghost. Divinity could not be summoned in its purest form, for it was too dreadful and powerful a force even for the Throne. But if they were chained to mortal flesh--What a pitiable existence.---a kamandersen drabble in which andersen thinks about curses and godhood in relation to love.
Relationships: Hans Christian Andersen | Caster/Kama | Assassin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	all the stars

**Author's Note:**

> kama is nb in this fic and will be referred to with "they/them" pronouns :^)

In the quiet moments they shared, Andersen liked to watch the universe dance across Kama.

He never could put a name to any of the stars that twinkled through their hair, for they were innumerable and without human reference. Constellations came into being because humankind had their feet planted upon the earth and had a sky to look upwards to. When he laid side-by-side with Kama, Andersen saw space from a drifter’s perspective. Entire galaxies swirled by in the shade of their hair, stars ignited and died in the curves of their body. To observe them was to observe the very flow of existence. Sometimes, when he brushed his hand over their arm, he worried about smudging stardust on his fingers. An impractical little worry, typical of an author.

But a curse was a curse, no matter how beautiful it looked. Andersen knew. His own curse bestowed mermaid scales upon his legs and everyday they pricked him with persistent, itching pain. Scales were lovely on fish. They were agony on humans.

Andersen once asked Kama, “Do your arms hurt?”

Kama looked at him as if he were daft. “You’re nosy today.”

“I’m always nosy.”

“Nosier than usual. I don’t know if I like it.”

“Get real. You don’t like anything because you can’t make your mind up.”

“Really, you should watch how you talk to me.”

“Or what? You’ll roast me? Your evasive maneuvers are agonizing! It’s like watching a snail try to do a flip off a leaf.”

Kama’s anger was often masked by boredom. To the untrained eye, the two emotions were difficult to sift apart. But Andersen, who read gods and humans alike with equal depth, knew the subtle signs. The stars drifting through their arms bunched together in reflection of their anger; their smile a little sharper; their eyes a little calmer -- a deliberate veil to lure the unsuspecting in.

The smile Kama gave wasn’t sharp. It slanted, crooked as an alligator’s smile, and Andersen knew he plucked at the right heart strings. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Don’t you humans say that all the time?”

Andersen didn’t get his answer. In the end, they wound up lazing on the sofa together, wrapped by raggedy blankets as they ignored the unfinished work scattered around them.

If someone wanted to know the nature of gods, they’d simply walk into Chaldea. The organization practically had its own pantheon and there were more than a few times where Andersen wondered what powers their Master had to herd divinity like unruly children. He couldn’t deny the base was a gold mine for any writer worth his salt. Why bother traveling when all the inspiration he could ask for was right in front of his nose?

He didn’t have to study long to come to a conclusion: pain to a god was nowhere near the same as pain to a human. What god hadn’t suffered to solidify the foundations of the world? And what were the petty day-to-day agonies of humanity to such a conceptual being? Andersen’s curse tormented him because he was human. To assume Kama suffered like him was egocentric.

But Kama was no longer a god, were they?

Thus came Andersen’s second conclusion: all gods at Chaldea were infected by humanity. They were no longer beings beyond the reach of mere mortals but soiled by the spirit of living as a ‘human’ ghost. Divinity could not be summoned in its purest form, for it was too dreadful and powerful a force even for the Throne. But if they were chained to mortal flesh--

What a pitiable existence.

Andersen kept such reasoning to himself, no matter how many times Kama came to the writers’ study to curl away in the sofa-turned-nest. Nothing could match a god’s might and power, much less the universe’s light. Yet, by the same token, there was no greater poison than human despair. And so Andersen returned to the one question, again and again:

“Does it hurt?”

Kama was proud. There was no way in hell they’d admit weakness, for weakness was beneath the divine. But they answered him with the way their gaze went distant, with the hours spent sleeping in the study’s corner, with how their shoulders ever-so-slightly drew inwards. “If you’re so curious about pain,” they said, “maybe I should reintroduce you to yours.”

Rightly answered, with anger simmering hot like the surface of a star, brighter than any match’s flame. So what if he was playing with fire? It was beautiful to witness.

“I consider that a promise,” Andersen answered, and watched the cosmos drift through their eyes.


End file.
